


Cream and Jam

by wirefern



Category: Phantom Thread (2017)
Genre: Breakfast, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-18 02:05:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13671999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirefern/pseuds/wirefern
Summary: Reynolds wants breakfast at night.





	Cream and Jam

**Author's Note:**

> Set right after the film ends. 
> 
> I feel like I shouldn't have to say this, but just to be on the safe side: head’s up for spoilers if you haven't seen the film yet.

So: Reynolds was getting hungry.

These were Alma's favorite words. She'd never tire of hearing them. They meant that Reynolds was happy: warm, open. When he was like this, he always wanted more. More food, more attention: more everything.

"What do you want to eat?" she asked. If he said he wanted mushrooms, she'd tell him no. She alone was in charge of the mushrooms.

His head rested in her lap; she stroked his hair. He rolled on his back and stared up at her.

"Two eggs. And tomatoes--"

"We don't have tomatoes. We'll get them tomorrow."

"That doesn't do me any good right now, does it?"

"You suffer so..." she teased.

"Yes, it's true. And I'd like fresh scones; yes, I think I'd like them very much. Would you bake them?"

"Yes."

He sighed and closed his eyes, content. She continued caressing him and staring into the fire, thinking.

"I'm not calling Robert Hardy next time. You have to trust me," she remarked after a quiet moment.

"That's fine. He was unnecessary."

"It was you who asked me to call him! Because you didn't trust me..."

"I trusted you. That's why I didn't ask for a _real_ doctor, only the boy-doctor."

She remembered walking Dr. Hardy out of the house. He'd smiled at her when she bid him good-bye, but his face was pale.

Reynolds raised his hand to touch her cheek. "What are you grinning about?" 

"I think we frightened him," she said.

"Yes, I think so!" Reynolds's hand smoothing her hair now.

"But it was amusing."

"It was, yes!" 

He sat up and began to kiss her, holding her shoulders with one arm and her hip with the other, to balance his weight. Here was a man surprisingly unaccustomed to embraces and kisses despite months of marriage, five decades of life, and however many supposed lovers. He was now willing to learn, at least.

He paused and pressed his forehead against hers, laughing softly. Then he said: "Well, my girl. To the kitchen!"

~

Alma took the mixing bowl from the cupboard, then the flour, the sugar. A little salt. Was Reynolds going to help her? No, of course not. He pulled up a dining chair and sat.

"Would you like the eggs while you're waiting for the scones?"

"No, I want everything together. All of it hot, at once."

"Of course."

She glanced at him as she worked, sitting there in his pajamas and tweed jacket. How settled down he was now; he'd lost so much of the fussiness, all due to her. It was quite an accomplishment; she prided herself in it.

He had his glasses on and her mushroom book in his hands. He flipped through it, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Some of these are much stronger than what you gave me, Alma. You should look for these..." He held the open book up and pointed to a page. "These would make me ill for a long time. Find these ones, Alma. They're the ones I'd like."

"Those could kill you."

"Yes, and there's the fun in it..."

"If I found that sort, I might give you a tiny bit. But I wouldn't tell you. It would be a surprise."

He nodded. Satisfied with her response, he closed the book and set it on the table. As he folded his glasses and set them aside he asked, "Was that Cyril who called today? I remember hearing the telephone."

Alma turned to him, holding the mixing bowl, stirring with a wooden spoon. "Yes. I told her you've been ill. We'll come back when you're better."

"But I won't be better, will I?" He looked up at her eagerly. "Will I?" he pressed again.

She smiled, eyelashes fluttering. "I promised I would make you well again."

His face crumpled in displeasure. "But I don't want to go back. It's too noisy there."

"Too noisy? What are you talking about?"

"Everything echoes in that house. I can hear people talking in the next room and their voice are like insects in my ears. And the clients! I can't bear them, I can't bear their stupidity and their chatter. The gossip, the nonsense. And they never really like what I make; they say they like it, but I can see the disappointment in their faces. I work and sew and work, and it's never enough, it's never the way I want it. They just suck the life out of me, Alma. If I start working, I won't be able to stop. I won't be able to stop _thinking_. I can't sleep in that house. There's no sleep, only work. And sewing. They suck the life out of me, and I can't sleep. I can't bear it!"

"Don't make yourself so frazzled," she said.

He shook his head and was quiet for a moment. Then, with a tone of frustration: "I'm not going to be sick after this--" he waved toward her mixing bowl and the oven-- "will I?"

"No."

"You could have fried them with the tomatoes, you know, if you had tomatoes--"

"But I don't."

"--cooking them with tomatoes, now that would have been clever."

Alma wiped flour from her hands with a dishrag, walked to the table, and took the book away from him. "I can put them in almost anything I cook you. You'd be surprised by all the things I could slip them into, and you'd never taste it." She smiled again, her _naughty_ smile, as he described it earlier in the day, when they were snuggled together on the bed. "And I'll do that...when it suits me."

"When it suits you, then," he said, frowning because he had no say in it.

"Yes," she told him, still smiling. "When it suits me." Because she was standing near him, she stroked his cheek and his hair. This was new to her: his allowing her to touch him tenderly, and his taking her by the waist to hold her close, like a child clinging to his mother.

She nudged him away. "I'll cook some bacon with your eggs. You'll like that."

He watched as she worked at the stove, taking the hot pan of scones from the oven, turning sizzling bacon with a fork. When everything was ready, she brought the food to the table, setting the plate of bacon and eggs before him. He started eating. She sat in the chair beside him, placed a scone on her plate and sliced it in half. It was warm and soft from the oven. She broke a small piece from the half and spread it with raspberry jam and clotted cream.

"Open your mouth," she told him. "I'll feed you."

He set his fork down on his plate and stared at her. "You're ridiculous," he said.

"Open your mouth," she repeated, and this time, he did.

She fed him, and while he chewed she spread the next piece with cream and jam. When she got jam on her fingers, she stuck her fingers in her own mouth and licked them clean. When there were only crumbs left on the plate, she looked at him and asked, "Would you like another?" and he nodded: yes.

Cutting another scone in half, she told him, "We'll return tomorrow. I'll drive. Cyril needs you. They can't do anything without you."

He sighed and glanced away from her, pouting. 

"I can tell you're feeling better." She smiled, a quick flutter of her lashes. "Your appetite is back."

He turned back to her, giving her that penetrating stare he used when the words just weren't worth his time.

"Now," she continued, ignoring his expression, "open up."

And he did.

**Author's Note:**

> In my interpretation, Alma told Dr. Hardy that the poisoning was consensual.
> 
> I'm really anxious about posting this fic, and the only reason I'm doing it is bc I was sad there wasn't anything written for PT yet, so I figured I'd do it myself. It's taken me two weeks to get up the nerve to post this :/


End file.
